GET IGNITED WITH POETRY

Type Books hosts the Toronto launch of the new poetry collection from Vancouver-based poet Kevin Spenst, Ignite! Ignite is a collection of elegiac and experimental poetry powder-kegged with questions about one man’s life-long struggle with schizophrenia. Born into a strict Mennonite family, Abe Spenst’s mental illness spanned three decades in and out of mental institutions where he underwent electric shock treatment and coma-induced insulin therapy. Merging memory and medical records, Kevin Spenst recreates his father’s life through a cuckoo’s nest of styles that both stand as witness and waltz to the interplay between memory, emotion and all our forms of becoming.

Kevin Spenst, a Pushcart Poetry nominee, is the author of a previous volume of poetry, Jabbering with Bing Bong (Anvil Press), and ten chapbooks, including Pray Goodbye (the Alfred Gustav Press), Retractable (the serif of nottingham), and Surrey Sonnets (JackPine Press). He has done a one-man show at the Vancouver Fringe Festival and over a hundred poetry readings across the country. His work has won the Lush Triumphant Award for Poetry, been nominated for both the Alfred G. Bailey Prize and the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry, and has appeared in dozens of publications. He lives and works in Vancouver.

Phoebe Wang was born in Ottawa and currently lives in Toronto, where she writes and teaches. She holds a BA in English from York University and a MA in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto. She is the author of two chapbooks, Occasional Emergencies (2013) and Hanging Exhibits (2016), and was the 2015 winner of Prism international‘s Poetry Contest. Admission Requirements is her debut collection of poetry.

Elizabeth Ross is the author of Kingdom (Palimpsest Press, 2015). Her work has been published in a number of literary magazines, selected for inclusion in Best Canadian Poetry 2013, and longlisted for the CBC poetry prize. She grew up in Victoria and studied creative writing at VIU and UBC, where she was poetry editor of PRISM international. She now lives in Toronto, where she’s at work on a series of personal essays and a book of poetry.